Waiting for Barbarians

In Waiting for Barbarians, the main character faces an internal struggle that he ultimately decides to put off. At the end of the novel, the Magistrate tries to "set down a record of settlement" (Coetzee 178). As the Magistrate begins writing, he realizes that he cannot bring himself to write about the true history of the settlement. Even though the Magistrate has been head of the settlement for twenty years, and a resident for thirty, he doesn't believe that he is even worthy to record any of the events that occurred during his time there. The Magistrate faces an internal struggle with writing about the history that the Empire would approve of and the actual truths about how the settlers reacted to the possible threat of barbarians.

The Magistrate is inspired to take account of the settlement for future references by the poplar relics he had been from previous inhabitation of the settlement. When the Magistrate begins to write, he starts with "We lived with nothing between us and the stars. We would have made any concession, had we only known what, to go on living here" (6.178). He even goes on to state how their time there was a paradise. This statement is the total opposite of the truth, and the Magistrate can't even bring himself to continue with this façade. The text states that he couldn't even believe he was providing "a message as devious, as equivocal, as reprehensible as this" (6.29). At one point, the Magistrate even stops writing and decides "when hunger truly bites us, when we are cold and starving, or when the barbarian is truly at the gate, perhaps then I will abandon the locutions of a civil servant with literary ambitions and begin to tell the truth." This procrastination is evidence of the Magistrate's internal conflict. The Magistrate does not want to write about how the settlers over reacted, became divided and lived in constant fear of a potential barbarian attack.

As well as not wanting to write about the truth, the Magistrate does not feel worthy enough to take account of the settlement. He states "I have lived through an eventful year, yet understand no more of it than a babe in arms. Of all the people of this town I am the one least fitted to write a memorial. Better the blacksmith with his cries of rage and woe" (6.180). Even though the Magistrate had been imprisoned, had direct contact with the said "barbarians" and was a subject of the Empire, he himself did not understand the cold war between the Empire and the natives. He did not comprehend why the Empire thought that the barbarians were such a threat, or why any of the events that year had taken place.